Sense and Sensibility

One of England's greatest writers, Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, where she lived the better part of her life. With her only sister, Cassandra, she was schooled briefly by a Mrs Ann Cawley, and rounded out her education through the efforts of her older brothers and her father, an Anglican vicar. Sense and Sensibility began as Elinor and Marianne, Austen's first full-length novel, which is thought to have been written before 1796. She returned to the work late in 1797, revising it greatly. Published in 1811, when she was 35, Sense and Sensibility was the first of Austen's novels to appear in English bookstores. It was a well-received work, selling out its print-run in under two years, and was followed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). As with her other novels, Sense and Sensibility concerns the question of suitable romantic partnerships and, ultimately, marriage. However, the author herself never wed, though she was briefly engaged - for a matter of hours - at the age of 26. Austen's life was not a long one. In the early months of 1816, her health began to fail. Over the course of the next months she managed to revise an old novel, Northanger Abbey, and compose another, Persuasion. However, by mid-March 1817, Austen was no longer able to write. She travelled to Winchester for treatment, and died there on 18 July 1817. Northanger Abbey (1817), Persuasion (1817) and Sanditon (1925), an unfinished novel, were all published posthumously.